ONE OF A KIND | BURNELLI CBY-3 LOADMASTER
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ONE OF A KIND | BURNELLI CBY-3 LOADMASTER Right Idea, Wrong Time BY STAN PIET PHOTOS COURTESY OF STAN PIET At a fresh 19 years old, he started his own company in 1915 and hoped to capitalize on war production. Although his first biplane flew successfully, it was a dead end for further development. Over the next few years, he worked for several small firms again developing tractor designs. His breakout vision, however, occurred in 1920 with a move to the Airliner Engineering Co. where he patented the lifting fuselage concept to his RB-1 design. e twin-engine biplane could carry 32 passengers in a slab-sided airfoil-shaped cabin. e engines were further buried in the forward fuselage to avoid parasitic drag, the whole of all developing lift to decrease wing area as well as takeoff and landing speeds. Burnelli next developed a slightly larger RB-2 that could carry an amazing 6,000 pounds of freight in 1923. Moving then to monoplane designs, he further developed a long series of design criteria that were applied to future designs. From 1928 to 1934, he pioneered and patented concepts of variable area and camber wings, winglets, all-wings, buried engines, retractable landing gear and the innovative lifting body. e GX- 3, a 1929 design, was a lifting body that incorporated many of the above efficiencies along with full-span high-lift flaps and pivoting wingtip ailerons, which showed capabilities of 300 feet takeoffs and speeds as low of 30mph. Capitalization of these sound efficiencies took time to catch on, but by the late 1930s, some were being utilized in other designs— notably Jack Northrop’s flying wing prototypes. e war period found Burnelli still working on advanced designs but the only airframe that made it to flight status is the subject of this “One of a Kind.” e CBY-3 was a collaboration with Canadian Car and Foundry (CCF) to develop a bush aircraft for both South and North American markets. Successfully demonstrated in 1945, although slightly underpowered with Wright 1830 engines, its marketing was later undertaken by CCF subsidiary Cancargo, or CanCar, designated as the CAM-1 Loadmaster. Transferred to U.S. registry in 1951, and still under promotion by Burnelli, it was re-engined and saw extensive service in several markets but no production orders were ever forthcoming. It ended up at Baltimore’s Friendship Airport in 1959, stripped down and forgotten at the back end of the general aviation ramp. Its carcass was acquired by the then Bradley Air Museum in 1973, but still remains outside awaiting restoration. As for Burnelli, he continued addressing new concepts of boundary layer control, flush inlets and all-wing designs now called blended wings. His lifting body concepts were successfully developed in the 1960s with subscale prototypes that spawned the space shuttle and newer reentry designs. Certainly, for an untrained engineer, he was well ahead of the technology curve for decades. However, he was ignored as not part of the mainstream thought processes of the time; as he rightly noted in 1950, “Aviation is still in its infancy; give it a chance to grow up, and they will see I am right.” A VIATION’S EVOLUTIONARY TREE is littered with thousands of different approaches to taking man to the skies and above. Combinations of thrust and lift to achieve flight have and continue to be constantly under revision and research. e old adage that under the right conditions you can make a kitchen sink fly probably could be demonstrated, but to what end? It’s the efficiency of design operation that has always been the prize of aeronautics since its earliest days, but its achievement is the challenge. Enter the saga of one of America’s earliest and most innovative designers who, from the outset of his career, strove to find those ideal design efficiencies. Virtually unknown today, Vincent Burnelli ranks as one of the most patented innovators from his first flying design at the age of 19 until his death in 1964. In 1908, as a scale model builder in New York, he acquired the basics of flight mechanics and soon ventured away from the Wright pusher concepts to tractor and tail controls as being more adaptable.
Transcript of ONE OF A KIND | BURNELLI CBY-3 LOADMASTER
ONE OF A KIND | BURNELLI CBY-3 LOADMASTER
Right Idea, Wrong TimeBY STAN PIET PHOTOS COURTESY OF STAN PIET
At a fresh 19 years old, he started his own company in 1915 and hoped to capitalize on war production. Although his first biplane flew successfully, it was a dead end for further development. Over the next few years, he worked for several small firms again developing tractor designs. His breakout vision, however, occurred in 1920 with a move to the Airliner Engineering Co. where he patented the lifting fuselage concept to his RB-1 design. The twin-engine biplane could carry 32 passengers in a slab-sided airfoil-shaped cabin. The engines were further buried in the forward fuselage to avoid parasitic drag, the whole of all developing lift to decrease wing area as well as takeoff and landing speeds.
Burnelli next developed a slightly larger RB-2 that could carry an amazing 6,000 pounds of freight in 1923. Moving then to monoplane designs, he further developed a long series of design criteria that were applied to future designs.
From 1928 to 1934, he pioneered and patented concepts of variable area and camber wings, winglets, all-wings, buried engines, retractable landing gear and the innovative lifting body. The GX-3, a 1929 design, was a lifting body that incorporated many of the above efficiencies along with full-span high-lift flaps and pivoting wingtip ailerons, which showed capabilities of 300 feet takeoffs and speeds as low of 30mph. Capitalization of these sound efficiencies took time to catch on, but by the late 1930s, some were being utilized in other designs—notably Jack Northrop’s flying wing prototypes.
The war period found Burnelli still working on advanced designs but the only airframe that made it to flight status is the subject of this “One of a Kind.” The CBY-3 was a collaboration with Canadian Car and Foundry (CCF) to develop a bush aircraft for both South and North American markets. Successfully demonstrated in 1945, although slightly underpowered with Wright 1830 engines, its marketing was later undertaken by CCF subsidiary Cancargo, or CanCar, designated as the CAM-1 Loadmaster. Transferred to U.S. registry in 1951, and still under promotion by Burnelli, it was re-engined and saw extensive service in several markets but no production orders were ever forthcoming. It ended up at Baltimore’s Friendship Airport in 1959, stripped down and forgotten at the back end of the general aviation ramp. Its carcass was acquired by the then Bradley Air Museum in 1973, but still remains outside awaiting restoration.
As for Burnelli, he continued addressing new concepts of boundary layer control, flush inlets and all-wing designs now called blended wings. His lifting body concepts were successfully developed in the 1960s with subscale prototypes that spawned the space shuttle and newer reentry designs. Certainly, for an untrained engineer, he was well ahead of the technology curve for decades. However, he was ignored as not part of the mainstream thought processes of the time; as he rightly noted in 1950, “Aviation is still in its infancy; give it a chance to grow up, and they will see I am right.”
AVIATION’S EVOLUTIONARY TREE is littered with thousands of different approaches to taking man to the skies and above. Combinations of thrust and lift to achieve flight have and continue to be constantly under revision and research. The old adage that under the right conditions you can make a kitchen sink fly probably could be demonstrated, but to what end? It’s the efficiency of
design operation that has always been the prize of aeronautics since its earliest days, but its achievement is the challenge. Enter the saga of one of America’s earliest and most innovative designers who, from the outset of his career, strove to find those ideal design efficiencies.
Virtually unknown today, Vincent Burnelli ranks as one of the most patented innovators from his first flying design at the age of 19 until his death in 1964. In 1908, as a scale model builder in New York, he acquired the basics of flight mechanics and soon ventured away from the Wright pusher concepts to tractor and tail controls as being more adaptable.
